~ Love, dating, and relationships

WHAT WE BOTH THINK I LOOK LIKE IN MY SKIVVIES

Isn’t it cute how guys get so excited when they hear we bought something at Victoria’s Secret? I don’t have the heart to tell them it’s just lip gloss. I’m pretty sure they think all women will look like the Size 2 models in the Victoria’s Secret catalogs if we wear their products.

The fact is, living up to those kinds of expectations is the reason why many women prefer to have the lights out when clothing becomes scarce. We don’t want our partners to see that we don’t look like Victoria’s Secret models in reality. We don’t want them to know we are masters of camouflage. We don’t want them to know we have more cottage cheese on us than the MSU Dairy Store.

Now, maybe we’re wrong, and they don’t expect us to look like a Victoria’s Secret model, but then why do they get so excited when we shop there? Do they know our back-fat hangs over the back of the bra? Do they not care if we have stretch marks? Would they really still want us if the lights were on?

Once a guy said to me, “I can imagine you lying on my bed in nothing but stockings.” I’m pretty sure he wasn’t talking about my control-top stockings. I’m sure he was thinking of sexy thigh-highs, and probably without fat popping over the tops of them like mini “muffin-tops.”

When I speak to my girlfriends about this topic, all except one worry about how they look in their Skivvies. I’ve found that the one who doesn’t worry is the exception to the rule. She told me that, when she’s with a guy, the thought of how she looks without her clothes on is the last thing on her mind because she’s so caught up in the moment. Oh, to be able to think like that! If only we didn’t have to worry about presenting our most thinning angle. If only we had the ability to stop being self-conscious and get lost in the moment of intimacy.

When you put the shoe on the other foot, do men feel the same sense of self-consciousness when they insist on keeping the light on? Do they ever worry about their beer gut or bald head or short-comings in other departments? No, no man has ever had the sense to worry about these things when he asks us to turn the light back on. Which leads me to wonder if the reason we women don’t want to keep the light on is to hide our own flaws, or is it because we don’t want to acknowledge who we’re with. Maybe we want the lights out so we can imagine that, just for a half hour (God willing), we’re with Ryan Reynolds, Sean Connery, or Chandler Bing.

Maybe the reason we really want the lights out is a combination of both. Maybe keeping the lights out not only allows us to imagine that we’re with Chandler Bing, but maybe, just for that half hour (God willing) we can pretend we have the solid bodies of an aerobics instructor, and we’re rolling around with a Kennedy. No one needs to know the truth, so let’s just keep the lights off.

Happy dating!

It’s not too late to catch Before The Nine Days, the prequel to Nine Days In Greece, before Nine Days EverAfter comes out!